More disturbing are the comments of Patrick Lynch, the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association President who stated, “We … believe that placing this officer on modified duty is premature and unwarranted. No police officer should ever face punitive action before a complete review of the facts.” That Mr. Lynch believes that an officer with a lengthy civilian complaint record, who exercise such poor judgment, and repeatedly uses unjustifiable force against members of the public should not be given a modified duty in light of this video, yet again demonstrates that police unions are one of the chief impediments to ensuring police officers obey the law are held accountable for their actions when they do not.
Law For Thee, But Not For Me
As McArdle avers, once you step outside the rule of law (meaning the positive law, or man-made law), you have done something radical, something that challenges the constitutional order at its root. There may be good reason to do this, but such an act is so morally serious that it must not be undertaken lightly, or without deliberation. It’s clear that there are many Christians who support Kim Davis because she’s doing something, even if that something is arguably counterproductive. This is unwise.
.. When an official can no longer execute the laws in question due to an assault on conscience, and after all accommodating measures have been exhausted, he or she could work for change as a private citizen, engaging the democratic process in hopes of changing the questionable law.
.. If religious liberty means that even officers of the state can defy the law without consequence, then it makes every individual a potential tyrant. The Kentucky Pentecostal county clerk who refuses the gay couple a marriage permit in principle legitimizes the California Episcopalian county clerk who refuses to record marriages performed by ministers of churches that don’t marry same-sex couples.
The Complicated Kim Davis Case
I might be wrong, but Wilson seems to be of the opinion that obstreperousness is next to godliness. He is advocating here that Christian officials, in the words Robert Bolt gave to Sir Thomas More, “cut a great road through the law to get to the devil”:
What would Christians do when the law protects their liberty, but Social Justice Warriors in local government refuse to obey the law, citing a higher law?
.. To live by the principle that Christians in government are not obliged to obey the law in the discharge of their official duties is a very dangerous one to take for Christians. Traditionalist, orthodox Christians are a minority in this country, and are going to become ever more despised. The day is coming when the only protection many of us can rely on is the law, and the willingness of government officers to obey the law, even though they hate us.
Scott Walker’s Wisconsin and the End of Campaign-Finance Law
To understand how the Wisconsin court came to this decision, Gableman is the ideal justice to focus on. As an undistinguished county trial judge, he was recruited by business organizations to run against Louis Butler, a liberal and the court’s only black member, in the 2008 election. He narrowly won, giving the conservatives a majority, in a campaign so ugly that the Wisconsin Judicial Commission brought charges against Gableman for “reckless disregard for the truth.” He had run TV ads that gave the false impression that Butler had tried “to put criminals on the street.” (In two reviews of the charges, Gableman was not sanctioned for reasons better explained by politics than logic.)
.. According to the Center for Media and Democracy, a liberal watchdog group in Wisconsin, Gableman would not have been elected without the support of Wisconsin Club for Growth, the state arm of the national Club for Growth, and Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce, the state chapter of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. These two groups spent a total of $2.75 million on so-called issue ads during the campaign, more than five times what the Gableman campaign spent. They are, as the center noted, the “same groups that allegedly coordinated with Walker and brought the challenge to these coordination rules.”
.. A September 7, 2011, e-mail from Doner to Walker, Johnson, Rindfleisch, and Keith Gilkes, who ran Walker’s 2010 campaign to be governor, became the governor’s chief of staff, and was a senior adviser to the 2012 recall campaign, containing “quick thoughts on raising money for Walker’s possible recall efforts.” Doner suggested the following for Wisconsin Club for Growth: “Take Koch’s money.” “Get on a plane to Vegas and sit down with Sheldon Adelson. Ask for $1m now.” “Corporations. Go heavy after them to give.”